


The Pain Which Brings Delight

by Vitreous_Humor



Series: Set Fire to Our Bed [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, The Book of the Lover and the Beloved
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, Blood, Bottom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Caning, Dubious Consent, M/M, No Sex, Sadist Aziraphale, Top Crowley (Good Omens), thirteenth century mystical texts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 10:17:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20526389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vitreous_Humor/pseuds/Vitreous_Humor
Summary: "Stand up.”Aziraphale had had more than enough of following orders after Heaven. He didn't even really like following them when they came from Crowley. However, he did like the hungry way Crowley was tracking his motions, tense as a snake before the strike.He met Crowley's eyes to make sure that Crowley understood that and rose slowly to his feet.“Oh, but I am in love with you,” Crowley said adoringly.





	The Pain Which Brings Delight

Aziraphale heard the tap of Crowley's shoes on the old wood floor of the bookshop and the whisper of Crowley sliding an insolent finger along the spines of the books. He also heard the way Crowley glanced up at him, waiting for him to notice.

Aziraphale ignored him. It didn't do reward such shameless displays.

“You said you wanted to see me for dinner tonight, angel. Not very fair of you to keep me waiting.”

“It's not even five yet,” Aziraphale said reasonably. “In no way at all is it dinnertime.”

“It can be dinnertime if we want it to be.”

“I don't want it to be. I am reading.”

“I can see that,” Crowley said resentfully.

He came to stand behind Aziraphale where he was peaceably reading at the desk, peering over Aziraphale's shoulder and even in his pique remembering not to breathe on the frail pages.

“Doesn't look so interesting,” he said.

There was something restless about Crowley today, Aziraphale thought absently. Usually by now, the demon would have gone to the back room for a nap, or went out to turn some parking meters to empty.

Instead he lingered, pacing back and forth and making himself difficult to ignore.

“So how interesting is that book?” Crowley asked finally.

“Very. They still can't decide if the writer was a saint or a heretic.”

“Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.”

“If you say so.”

Crowley lasted precisely another two minutes before he growled.

“I'm tired of watching you read.”

“Then don't watch me read.” It seemed very simple to Aziraphale, who was, very quietly, enjoying Crowley's frustration. He reached for his tea and took a delicate sip before going back to the book.

“How much longer?” demanded Crowley.

“Not long. Just another page.”

“You're going to _savor _it,” Crowley accused. “I can tell. You'd take another week with that page if I let you.”

It was a fair accusation. Aziraphale could absorb the contents of a bookstore, even one as well-populated as his own, in less than a second. Reading was another experience entirely, letting each word drop into his mind, allowing his eyes to trace along the solid black lines of the letters, focusing on the tiny irregularities in the paper and the slight distortion of an off-center O. He didn't read like a human would read, but he might have read like a human had sex.

Today, the pleasure of reading and the pleasure of frustrating Crowley to the point of growling was mixing in a surprisingly delightful way. And 4:30 in the afternoon was certainly not dinnertime however one cut it.

He thought Crowley might storm off (not far, but at least to make a point), but today, it seemed he was wrong.

“Angel.”

That tone made Aziraphale blink slowly, eyes finally leaving the page.

Crowley stood to his side, and the frustration had sharpened to something different, something that could cut. Crowley's shadow on the wall, usually quite faithful, looked thin even for a shadow, and for an instant, the head split across where the mouth should be, showing off sharp fangs before remembering itself.

Aziraphale turned to look at his demon more closely, taking in the tight set of his shoulders, the slight drop of his chin. Crowley was spoiling for... no, not a fight. Something else.

Aziraphale took the instinct that told him to _put the demon in his place_, folded it up tightly and locked it up in the box. It was fun to play with, but it wasn't needed right this moment. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly level.

“Yes, my dear?”

“You want to read?”

“I told you I did.”

“How much?”

Aziraphale let a hint of irritation sneak into his voice.

“I told you that too,” he said sternly. “Just another page...”

Crowley grinned at some private joke, and Aziraphale's heart beat a little faster, his mouth suddenly dry.

“I meant, angel, how much do you want to keep reading?”

Aziraphale huffed.

“Very much so. I should think it would have been obvious.”

“Shall we see? Stand up.”

There was a moment where Aziraphale had to think about it. He had had more than enough of following orders after Heaven. He didn't even really like following them when they came from Crowley. However, he _did _ like the hungry way Crowley was tracking his motions, tense as a snake before the strike.

He met Crowley's eyes to make sure that Crowley understood that and rose slowly to his feet.

“Oh, but I am in love with you,” Crowley said adoringly.

“That's flattery upon getting your way,” said Aziraphale, but then Crowley was turning him back to his desk, the book in front of him, and his hands set on the wood to either side.

“Crowley,” he said, his voice tight, and Crowley leaned down to kiss his ear, pressing a hand to his lower back to make him bend over a little more, nudging his feet back.

“Go on,” he hissed sweetly. “_Read. _Whenever you're done reading, we can go to dinner or whatever you like best.”

“I like a great many things,” Aziraphale said, recognizing the position. “Typically, pain is not among them.”

“Want to go to dinner, then?”

“It's only 4:30,” Aziraphale said, knowing how stubborn he sounded and knowing what decision he was making.

“Read, then,” Crowley said invitingly. “Out loud if you like. I wouldn't mind hearing what's so blasted special about all of it.

As Aziraphale turned back to the book, he felt that staticky prickle in the air, magic, and when he turned to look, there was a cane in Crowley's hands. It was menacingly thin, and as Aziraphale watched, Crowley bent it into a deep arc before letting it straighten back out. Crowley grinned when he caught Aziraphale's eye.

“Change your mind about dinner, angel?”

“Certainly not,” Aziraphale said, swallowing a little. “But when I get to the end of the page, I _will _get what I_ like best,_ as you put it.”

“And if you don't, then we'll still go to Barrafina, even if it's not _just _when you wanted to go. What a spoiled angel I've got.”

Aziraphale blushed at that. Honestly, if Crowley had only spoken to him like that instead of pestering him so, he would have gone right along. Probably.

“I am _not_ spoiled,” he said, and Crowley tapped the tip of the cane against the desk, still too wise to touch the book itself.

“Read, spoiled little angel.”

Aziraphale cleared his suddenly dry throat, staring down at the page in front of him.

“_Say, Fool, which was in being first, thy heart or thy love?”_

On the last word, there was a high whistle followed by an explosion of pain across Aziraphale's rear, hot and burning and surely too hard. Aziraphale's breath left him without sound, and he twisted his head to look at Crowley accusingly, trembling a little.

“Already done reading, angel?” asked the demon mildly, twirling the cane through his fingers like a girl would a baton.

“No,” Aziraphale said, his voice a little thin. He turned back to the page, a little shocked at having lost his place even as the pain pulled back.

“_He answered and said: “Both come into being together, for were it not so, the heart had not been made for love nor love for reflection.”_

“That's pretty,” Crowley said, “But what on earth does it mean?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to reply, but then the cane came down twice more, so fast that he almost thought they were one horrid stroke. The only reason he didn't leap up and break the damned thing into a dozen pieces was because that meant he would lose. Instead Aziraphale panted open-mouthed through the blistering pain, speaking when he thought he could without a shameful quaver.

“It means that the heart was only made to love and that love would not be understood and moved without the heart. One does not exist without the other.”

“Pretty,” Crowley said again, and brought the cane down with what felt like the full force of his arm.

This time, Aziraphale cried out, the sound echoing through the bookshop. One hand went back to clutch at the offended flesh, half certain Crowley must have torn fabric if not skin, but Crowley took his hand and gently returned it back to the desk.

“It's fine, it's fine,” Crowley murmured, “I don't want to hurt your pretty hands. Don't reach back, all right?”

“My _clothes_,” Aziraphale muttered, his voice thick and petulant, He was shaking a little, waiting for the pain ran its course, knowing it would even as it seemed to take forever to do so. Crowley laughed.

“Spoiled _vain _angel. All right. I'll take care of it.”

He came to stand behind Aziraphale, arms going around him. For a moment it was a gentle hug, almost a comforting thing, and then Crowley pressed his hips hard against Aziraphale's rear, making the welts come alive again in shock and offense.

“Crowley-!”

“Shush, aren't I taking care of it just as I said I was?”

Crowley's long hands drifted down to Aziraphale's belt buckle, languidly undoing the belt and then the button fly beneath. Aziraphale took a breath as Crowley eased his trousers down his generous hips, letting them drop softly somewhere to the vicinity of his knees, and then reach up for the waistband of his underwear.

“Oh _please” _he said, going redder. “It's _too _embarrassing.”

“Don't know what you're talking about angel. Nothing to be embarrassed about here.”

Aziraphale's underwear was tugged down with far less care than his trousers, the light cotton dragging against the tender welts. Aziraphale shifted a little as Crowley lifted the tail of his shirt up to drape across his back..

“Well, that's nice, isn't it?” he said,.

Aziraphale opened his mouth to respond, and then there was another swish and a crack as the cane landed again, this time without the benefit of padding from his clothes. Tears of hurt sprang to Aziraphale's eyes, and he had to fight down the twin urges to fall down on his knees and to leap at Crowley and make him _eat _that damned cane. The pain spread from that thin welt, too hot to be real, Aziraphale was sure, even if he was that way inclined.

He wanted to shout at Crowley, call him a few choice names. Instead, he looked down at the book.

“_They asked the Fool, where was your Love born, in the secrets of your Beloved or-”_

Aziraphale bit down on the cry as another cane stroke came whistling down, this one low across his thighs. Crowley must be crouching down to get one that low.

“-_or in the revelation of them to men?”_

He glanced back at Crowley defiantly, and Crowley gave him a brilliant, almost proud smile.

“Satan, what a soldier you are,” he said admiringly.

Aziraphale scowled, his eyes bright with tears, his fingers digging deep scratches into his desk.

“_Don't_ call me that,” he said. “I don't like it.”

The smile dropped off of Crowley's face at once. He looked alarmed and ashamed.

“'m sorry, angel,” he said, and Aziraphale turned back to the desk, pushing that ugly little line out of his mind. Just because he could_ take _pain was no reason to return to where he had learned to do so. He didn't want his demon upset or ashamed. He went back to his book and kept reading

“_He answered and said love in its fullness does not make these kind of-”_

Two strokes, one practically on top of the other, and Aziraphale's body seemed to seize up, wanting nothing more than to curl in on itself and shriek. It was agony. It was too much. He hated it. The only sound in the shop was his pained whines, and it took longer to swallow them then he would have guessed.

“_-distinctions. For the Lover keeps hidden secretly the secrets of his Beloved. He also reveals them secretly, and when they are revealed-”_

Three. Three strokes this time, and tears stung Aziraphale's eyes as his clenched his teeth around a scream. Crowley was standing almost beside him, making sure that the strokes cut across his ass like rails over a field. It was too easy to imagine how red they were against his pale skin, how they rose up from his flesh.

“_and when they are revealed, he still keeps them secret.”_

“I don't understand that part,” Crowley said, his voice a little hushed.

“Some secrets you can give, and still keep,” Aziraphale said, his voice thin, and the back of his throat cold from his cries.

“Sounds like a riddle to me. How can you give a secret away and still keep it?”

“If the other keeps it as well.”

Aziraphale jumped when Crowley tapped the cane over the traumatized flesh, bouncing it a little. The previous cuts were so raw it still hurt, even as gentle as it was.

“Tell me a secret,” Crowley said, his voice soft. “Tell me, and I promise I'll keep it.”

Aziraphale thought for a moment. He felt a little dizzy, a little faint. He refused to let the pain drive him out of his body, so instead, he had to bear the strangeness of it, stress hormones flooding his system, some chemical signals telling him to fight while others told him to beg. It was a mess in there, really.

“A secret. All right. This is not something I would take from anyone besides you. No one in Heaven, Hell or Earth could bend me like this without breaking me. Just you.”

Crowley hissed a little at that. Aziraphale looked back down at the page in front of him.

“_The secrets of love unrevealed- _ah!- _cause suffering- _ghk-_ and grief...”_

Crowley wasn't stopping now. There was a flurry of blows, lighter but still terribly cruel and cutting. Aziraphale closed his eyes and _didn't _think about how that cane slashed against his plush flesh, _didn't _think about that terrible thing cutting across skin that was already so abused. He _didn't _think about how he was sure he could feel a trickle of blood, maybe more than one, running down to stain his clothes, or how he couldn't remember something hurting like this.

He couldn't continue until Crowley paused, and he wiped his eyes hard because the last thing he could bear right now was damaging his precious book. God's Mercy, but what a sight he must be, bent over his desk half undressed with his face so red and stained with tears.

“_The revelation of love brings fervor and fear. And it is for this reason the Lover must always have sorrow.”_

Aziraphale flinched as Crowley laid a cool hand against the worst of the welts. He was gentle, however, and slowly, Aziraphale relaxed into his touch.

“Are you done, angel?” asked Crowley.

In response, Aziraphale lifted his head and looked down at the page.

“_The Lover cried aloud to all men and said “Love bids you love always, in walking and sitting-”_

One blinding stroke that nearly pushed Aziraphale face forward into the book. He kept reading.

“_-in sleep and silence, in buying and selling-”_

One laid right over the last, almost as hard. Aziraphale snarled, and kept reading.

“_-weeping and laughing-”_

Two, and he could tell that Crowley was getting nervous. Aziraphale stared at the words in front of them, willing them to make sense through the haze of pain. Kept reading.

“-_gain and loss. In whatever you do-”_

Aziraphale shouted on the last word, rocking against the desk with the cane strokes slashing against his thighs, low now, letting the pain crest because he couldn't do anything else. Another blow almost muted him, but he found his voice, even if it was harsh and ugly in his own ears.

“-_you must love, for this is Love's commandment.” _

The quiet as Aziraphale finished was deafening.

Slowly, Aziraphale straightened, groping at his clothing with slightly shaky hands. With a wince, he drew his trousers up, fastening them slowly and deliberately before buckling his belt again. He took all the time he needed, aware of the weight of Crowley's gaze on him. There were splinters of wood under his fingernails from where he had clawed at the desk, much good that did. He shook them loose, and then carefully reached over to close the book. What a beautiful thing it was.

He turned to Crowley, who stared at him with a mixture of passion and need and fear stark on his face. He held the cane behind his back, almost guiltily. What a beautiful thing Crowley was, too.

“Give me that,” Aziraphale said, his voice a little hoarse.

Crowley gave the cane to him with no hesitation, licking his lips.

“Do you want me to-”

He stuttered to a halt as Aziraphale broke the rattan cane into a dozen small pieces, opening his hands to let them clatter to the floor.

“Um.”

“I believe I told you that when I finished reading that page that I was going to get what I liked best.”

“So... want to go to Barrafina now? It's, um, late enough.”

“No,” Aziraphale said, a spark of temper crossing his voice. “The chairs there are very hard.”

He felt something else spark in him at the way Crowley drew in on himself. He couldn't sense fear and desire like a demon could, but he could see it quite well.

“Angel,” Crowley said, his voice half-faint with desire and tension.

“What I want you to do, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, savoring every word as if it were written in oak gall ink on vellum, “is to _run.”_

There was a boom of displaced air as Crowley disappeared, and right before he vanished, his glasses slipped down his nose just enough for Aziraphale to see the stark terror and desire there.

Alone in his shop, Aziraphale smiled. It was thin, brittle, and more than a little pained, but it was real. He touched the volume on the desk fondly, and then with a snap of his fingers he was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> *Aziraphale is reading from _The Book of the Lover and the Beloved_ by Ramon Llull, and there really is still a canonization order for him open at the Vatican. Any mistakes Aziraphale makes in his reading of the text are of course my own, and I should note that a brief section is cut out so i could make the scene flow more evenly. 
> 
> *(points emphatically at the bad kink tag)
> 
> *This is fic is basically the epitome of "play stupid games, get stupid prizes." I'm not saying that you can't have a good time messing up a sadist: I'm just saying that there's likely going to be some repercussions afterward.
> 
> *For anyone playing the home game, this is definitely the Aziraphale and Crowley from The Price of Feeling Better.
> 
> *This is actually like, try four at writing a Top!Crowley scene and the first one where it did not go seriously off the rails into something incredibly dark. I may just have issues with Top!Crowley?
> 
> *If you can think of any tags I shoulda used but missed, let me know. This was another weird one.


End file.
